Say Yes to the Honolulu Rail System

Time’s up for the Yes2Rail blog, which I launched on June 30, 2008 as a paid consultant on Honolulu's elevated rail project. Yes2Rail’s August 13, 2012 post was its last following the author's move to Sacramento, CA. You’re invited to read four-plus years of information-packed entries, many of which are linked at our “aggregation site.” Look for the paragraph with red copy in the right-hand column, below. Mahalo for all the positive comments Yes2Rail received since its start.

November 6, 2012 Update: Pro-rail Kirk Caldwell defeated anti-railer Ben Cayetano in today's mayoral election, 53.9 to 46.1 percent. The result mirrors the August primary election's pro-rail outcome, as summarized in the headline above and in the post below. (We probably shouldn't say "told you so," but in fact, we did.) And if you're really curious about what we said about Mr. Cayetano's transportation ideas, visit our aggregation site and scroll down to the 2012 Mayoral Race and Rail section.

Barring unexpected
developments that could reverse this decision, today’s post is Yes2Rail’s last – number 804 in the series that began on June 30, 2008. So we sign off with a few
closing comments as we prepare to concentrate our energies on All
Things California.

Some people in Honolulu
would have you believe the rail project is like a boxer who’s barely surviving
the 10th round of a 12-round championship fight. He’s ahead on all
the scorecards, but still they work hard to convince the public that a knockout
punch is likely even this late in the fight – despite all the evidence.

The Honolulu Elevated Rail
Project is farther down the track than any other proposal to create a
traffic-free commuting alternative in Our Honolulu’s congestion-choked southern
corridor. The project's Full Funding Grant Agreement application is in Washington and is likely to be approved in the next few months, something the late Frank F. Fasi, who was elected Honolulu's mayor six times, never came close to achieving despite multiple attempts to build rail.His final plan died in the City Council 20 years ago this Fall.

So how did rail succeed this time around? Oh, I dunno…..maybe because it
benefited from an excellent public information campaign! That’s one conclusion
someone could make (we just did), since railhas been consistently supported by Oahu residents several
years running, including only two days ago.

In 2008, the pro-rail
candidates won and anti-railers lost. A scientific poll released four years ago this month found 58 percent of those surveyed supporting rail, while only 38
percent said they were opposed. Remember the City Charter amendment that year
directing the City’s transportation division to pursue a steel-on-steel system?
It passed.

One year later, a poll reported 60 percent support for the project among those who were scientifically
surveyed – 34 percent strongly supportive and 26 percent somewhat supportive.
Of the 37 percent who said they were opposed, 21 percent were strongly against
the project, and 16 percent were somewhat opposed.

A few months later in May
2011, another scientific survey found support for rail at 57 percent, with 40
percent opposed. That poll was publicized in the same month the Gang of Four –
Cliff Slater, Ben Cayetano, Randy Roth and Walter Heen – filed a federal
lawsuit to kill the rail project.

The Gang’s PR campaign has
been barreling along virtually nonstop since last August and hit its peak with the launch of former Governor Cayetano’s campaign for mayor in
January, with near-constant media coverage of his anti-rail rhetoric. Yes2Rail concluded he really didn't understand rail very well. He's essentially a
one-issue candidate, as the media continually remind
us.

So How's Rail Doing Now?

In spite of all this
negativity about the rail, the project is doing just fine, thank you very much,
and the evidence of rail’s continuing support among the public is only two days
old.

Saturday’s Primary
Election supplied that evidence.

Pro-Rail Candidates: 54.6 percent

Anti-Rail Candidate: 44.7 percent

After all of the criticism,
all the negativity, all the accusations and misrepresentations in the anti-rail
camp’s massive multi-media PR campaign (see our “aggregation site” and the Mr.
Cliff Slater and Friendsheading),
the opponents have failed to move the needle! The rail project’s support among
Oahu voters two days ago was a solid majority!

Candidates have come and
gone, some won and some lost, but consistent throughout the years has been the rail project's
public involvement campaign that week after week, month after month
supplied residents with truthful information that helped them understand and
appreciate the project.

But as they say, no good
deed goes unpunished, and the rail project’s public involvement team was "whacked" this summer, to use Civil Beat's word for the budget-trimming. Those of us whose involvement with rail ends this
month leave knowing the mission was
accomplished.

What About the Polls?

The public opinion surveys
published by the Star-Advertiser/Hawaii News Now and Civil Beat in recent weeks deserve a second look. The newspaper/TV poll published
on July 29 called it almost exactly right for Mr. Cayetano – 44
percent support in the Primary. The survey underestimated Mr.
Caldwell’s support by nearly 5 percentage points and overestimated Mr.
Carlisle’s backing by 2 points.

Governments do not
differentiate between voters and non-voters in their planning processes. With
non-voters having lower incomes and less education than voters, they’re more
likely to rely on public transit than citizens who vote. Opinion surveys on
rail that ignore the non-voters’ views can’t possibly reflect the community’s
true support and appreciation of the rail project.

Whatever the reasons for Civil
Beat’s big miss in its most recent
survey, getting rid of voter-only polling can only help.

And Finally....

Yes2Rail has criticized the Honolulu news media over the past several months for their hands-off approach to covering
Governor Cayetano’s bus rapid transit alternative to elevated Honolulu rail.
After weeks of Yes2Rail posts calling on Mr. Cayetano to release details of
his “plan,” the Star-Advertiser finally pressed the point in a late-May editorial.

However, in the end, we’re
not so sure the media’s poor performance really mattered. The August 2012
Primary Election's results showed that rail continues to receive majority
support among Oahu residents.

Despite the media's laid-back
reporting and the opponents’ anti-rail rhetoric, residents managed to sort and
sift through the information available to them from multiple sources, including
the rail project itself, and gave the pro-rail candidates more votes than
the would-be rail killer.

It took Civil Beat two weeks to do what Yes2Rail did on July 26th
when we concluded a Ben Cayetano radio spot is “flat-out wrong” in suggesting
drivers won’t benefit once Honolulu’s rail system is in operation.

Civil Beat’s analysis seems to be precisely correct in finding
fault with the spot based on various tables and data within them in rail’s
Final Environmental Impact Statement. Well and good, but can we please get our
noses out of the FEIS and step back to appreciate the bigger picture?

Here’s are four points we
think Civil Beat missed in an
analysis that must warm the hearts of every stat fanatic and accountant:

Point One

Does anybody really believe
Ben Cayetano is driving this bus? In finding the Cayetano radio spot only HALF
TRUE, Civil Beat merely confirms what we’ve been harping on here at
Yes2Rail for years:

Cliff Slater deliberately
uses misinformation and obfuscation to confuse the public into believing rail would
be a failure if congestion continues to grow long after rail is built. And now
he has Mr. Cayetano doing it, too.

Rail’s “failure” to prevent
congestion from growing as the population grows is Mr. Slater’s top talking
point, and you hear it in Mr. Cayetano’s statements, too – slipped to the
candidate behind closed doors by anti-railer-in-chief.

The anti-rail mayoral
candidate is leaning so heavily on Cliff Slater for his campaign’s theme that
it may as well be Mr. Slater who’s running for mayor so he can kill rail
transit now and forever on Oahu.

We provided links two days ago in Yes2Rail's post to several earlier posts about Mr. Slater’s obfuscation
campaign. You’re invited to click on them, read them and then reflect on
whether the current campaign against rail is what citizens have a right to
expect from their leaders.

Point Two

Can we settle for anything
less than the whole truth from people who want to run this city? We’ve made
this point before, too, and our summary of Civil Beat’s Fact Checks on the Gang of Four’s August 2011 commentary is worth a repeat visit.

Of the seven issues Civil
Beat checked, it found only two that
wereTRUE, two that were completely FALSE , and three that wereHALF
TRUE , which means they also
wereHALF FALSE .

That’s a terrible record for
a quartet made up of three attorneys – including a former governor, a current
law school professor and a former judge – and Mr. Slater. By relying on a
self-proclaimed 'transit expert' for their material, the three lawyers are
willing passengers on Mr. Slater’s bus – The Obfuscation Express.

Point Three

The radio spot avoids any
reference to the benefit rail will provide for the people who need it most –
west Oahu residents who travel to and from town through the east-west urban
corridor. It lumps all drivers into the same category – people from East
Honolulu, the Windward Side, the North Shore, everywhere – and suggests rail will
be a failure if they don’t
plan to ride the train.

Rail isn’t being built for
everyone! Oahu’s #1 congestion problem is precisely where the rail line will
serve communities and residents in that corridor. The radio spot’s intellectual
dishonesty is undoubtedly obvious to my fifth-grade granddaughter and her
friends!

Point Four

As we noted two weeks ago, commuters
who continue to drive their own cars will enjoy less congestion after rail is
built than if we did nothing at all. That’s a close paraphrase of Mr. Slater’s admission before the City Council in July 2010 when he conceded that rail will
have the positive benefit of slowing congestion’s inevitable growth.

The project believes
island-wide congestion as measured in vehicle hours of delay will be reduced by
18 percent in 2030 with rail in operation.The anti-rail radio spot is flat-our wrong.

Bottom Line

We’re not finding fault with
Civil Beat’s analysis of the
spot. It did a good job as far as it went. But there’s so much left
unsaid in most media coverage of the rail debate, including this Fact Check, that Yes2Rail has had no
trouble feasting on what's been left out over the past four years.

The Cayetano campaign's recent radio
spot is more of the same – easy pickings actually.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

Honolulu could expect crashes like this if rail were built at ground level.

If you’ve read it here once,
you’ve seen it dozens of times: Only grade-separated transit can provide fast,
frequent, reliable and safe travel through the city – each time you ride.

Elevated rail will be faster
that any surface-based transportation system, no matter what
anti-railer-in-chief Cliff Slater says. Rail will be more frequent – arriving
every 3 minutes during rush hour – and it’ll be more reliable by never ever
being involved in crashes with other vehicles at intersections. The areno
intersections when the line is elevated above traffic.

And that’s where we’re
landing today – smack dab on the Safety issue. It’s no surprise people who
oppose Honolulu rail avoid talking about the safety issue at all costs. They
just don’t have an answer for it.

We’ve tried calling them out
on the safety issue, and we banged away pretty hard in 2010 around the time
Governor Linda Lingle held her “public hearing” on rail in the State Capitol.
It was a staged event to highlight her opposition to rail and support for an
at-grade rail version supported by some in Honolulu’s architect community.

Our headline on January 15 declared At-Grade’s Drawbacks Can’t Be Airbrushed Away. The post’s eight bullet points detailed the obvious
drawbacks of running light-rail trains on Hotel Street through
Honolulu’s downtown section, including super-crowded Chinatown. It’s impossible
for anyone except the most ardent at-grade supporters to imagine such a scheme.
Look at the photographs in that post and come to your own conclusion.

Two days later our post was headlined3 ‘Crosswalk Pedestrian’ Deaths Already in 2010; AIA Still Pushes
for At-Grade Train in Chinatown.

The January 19, 2010 hearing
captured Yes2Rail’s attention under the headlineAIA Capitol Hearing Skirts
At-Grade Safety Issue; Chapter’s Vision Won’t Do What Honolulu Needs.Safety
had become the biggest argument against at-grade rail, so we kept at it then
and later:

The January 29 post deserves
some extra attention because it reported on details of the AIA chapter’s
internal poll among its members on the rail issue. We wrote:

“The results are
remarkable in light of the chapter’s impassioned advocacy of at-grade rail.
Using the figures in the poll summary reveals only 5.3% of the chapter’s
membership responded in favor of at-grade rail. Larger percentages favored
elevated rail (6.3%) and below-grade rail (8.4%).

“Another way to parse
these numbers is that nearly three times as many respondents favored
grade-separated rail (96) compared to at-grade (35). So how can the AIA Rail
Task Force members go before the community with a straight face and say
at-grade rail is such a favorite among local architects?”

As we noted in that post,
only 24.3% of the respondents supported at-grade rail, 38.2% said rail should
be built below ground, 28.5% said elevated was best and the rest didn’t care or
failed to give a response. We summarized: “75.7% of the respondents chose
not to select at-grade rail – a remarkable outcome in light of the chapter’s
campaign in favor of that option.”

Yes2Rail’s post on April 2, 2010 was headlined Lingle Still Supports At-Grade Rail Despite Flaws;
Doesn’t Fast, Frequent, Reliable & Safe Matter? As she demonstrated over the final months of her
term by withholding approval of the Final Environmental Impact Statement,
Governor Lingle didn’t think Honolulu’s rail project mattered at all.

Consider the Crashes

The photographs in
Yes2Rail’s right-hand column don’t lie. They’re the images of what happens when
at-grade rail transit is inserted into a city – any city. It’s never a good
idea when trains, cars, buses, trucks and pedestrians try to occupy the same
space.

Even the newest rail systems
with tons of lessons learned from other rail-equipped cities around the country
can run into trouble. One year ago, Norfolk, VA launched The Tide, its
relatively short at-grade rail system, and recorded its first accident – before
the system officially began service!

Our August 12 post was
headlined Yet To Open, Norfolk’s Train Has First Car Crash. Check out also this TV station report following that
accident that examined all the bells and whistles the at-grade system uses to
alert motorists and pedestrians that a train is approaching. Listen to those horns and be thankful Honolulu's system will be elevated, with no need for warning sounds!

But that was just the
beginning. A second collision was recorded a few days later during the
“practice” sessions with the new system. WAVY-TV carried two video reports on that collision, here and here.

Sacramento’s system was the
subject of our Jogging & Keeping Pace with an At-Grade Train post on September 19, 2009 that focused on the
system’s relatively slow speed compared to Honolulu’s future elevated
system.

Houston, TX? See this
compilation of crashes called Metro’s Greatest Hits involving the city’s Metro Rail system that runs on
city streets.

Salt Lake City, UT? Check out this report on a teenager's death and other videos depicting the TRAX system’s numerous crashes and
fatalities – at least 7 deaths over a four-year period. The chart at right was
included in a TV station’s report that compared the city’s operational record
with other at-grade rail systems in the western region of the country.

And still some prominent people
in Honolulu believe
at-grade rail would be a good idea for our city. Will they be asked to defend that preference in light of at-grade's poor safety record compared to elevated rail? Is preserving a view plane worth a single life, let alone many? Don't elevated rail's fast, frequent, reliable and safe attributes matter? Of course they matter. Maybe you'll have a chance to ask those prominent people in the weeks ahead if their transit preferences compare favorably with Honolulu's future elevated rail system that literally above all will be safe.

You have to hand it to Cliff
Slater. He’s managed to position rail as a future failure if traffic congestion
will be worse after rail is built than it is today. What a snake oil salesman!

Of course congestion will be worse in the future than it is
today! Will people stop moving here? Will families stop having babies? Will the
long-extinct volcanoes that created Oahu miraculously start pumping more
lava that can be paved over with new highway lanes? Would the public even tolerate more lanes?

No to all those questions, but even the
media have been suckered by Mr. Slater’s pitch – giving him a free pass on his
manipulative, deceptive anti-rail messaging. You’ll look in vain if you search
the local media for even one tough interview that forced him to defend his
talking points.

We’re going to spend the
final week of Yes2Rail’s connection to the rail project by linking to earlier
posts here that help put the Slater anti-public transit machine into perspective. Maybe we can
create a critical mass in the doing that will give a few reporters reason to
start asking those questions – if not this week, then over the next three months..

Failure to Nip in the Bud

The congestion issue is where to begin.John
Temple, the former Civil Beat
editor who has moved on to the Washington Post, had a chance to stand fast against the Slater sales
pitch back in July 2010, not long after Civil Beat’s launch.

Mr. Temple’s July 12, 2010 piece on his interview a few days earlier with Mr. Slater has a deferential
tone to it, with no evidence in the three video segments posted that day of any
push-back by the seasoned journalist.

For example, here’s the
revealing content of the third video segment:

“Well, first off we have
to understand that we have a traffic congestion problem. We don’t have a public
transportation problem, OK. We need to firmly address reducing traffic
congestion in the future as one of – if not the primary – functions of any
new proposals. And there are various tools that we could use. Rail is not one
of them. It has not reduced traffic congestion anywhere, and we can spend 5 point 5
billion dollars a lot more wisely than merely on the rail line (emphasis added)."

That’s an extraordinary
quote that went unchallenged at the time by Mr. Temple and has skated by
unchallenged, as far as we can tell, by all other journalists in Honolulu. Only
rail supporters have managed to say, “Hold on, Cliff. You’re asking rail to do
something no transportation project can do – put a lid on congestion’s growth
over the next two decades to keep it at today’s level. Rail can’t do it, and
neither can buses or your high-occupancy toll roads!”

That would have been a reasonable response from Mr.
Temple, but there was no pushback on that statement or the others Mr. Slater
floated past Civil Beat’s
editor:

• “Why pay more when we can
get the same service for less?”

Pushback Missed: Says who?
What evidence did Mr. Slater have to suggest “the same service” could be
achieved for less money? How could any alternative that operates in shared road
space – contending with cross traffic at intersections, the daily traffic
build-up, the whole lot of it – provide the same level of service as
grade-separated rail transit? Mr. Slater wasn’t pressed to defend that
statement.

• “It doesn’t take too much
of a businessman to say this is a waste of money.”

Pushback Missed: Was Mr.
Slater saying rail is a total waste of money? Did he know what rail’s goals
are? How would whatever alternative he alluded to be a better expenditure?

• “These folks on the Ewa
plane (sic) need some traffic relief. Nothing that’s being proposed is going to
give them that.”

Pushback Missed: Would Mr.
Slater have conceded that people who ride the train will get total traffic
relief? That being the obvious truth of the matter, it appears obvious that
what he wants is absolute traffic reductions for the driving public. Is that
it?

• “My sense of it is that
people are becoming a lot more aware of the disconnect between the amount of
money that is going to go into this thing and the supposed benefits we’re going
to get from it.”

Pushback Missed: The city is
clear about rail’s benefits. What Mr. Slater seems to be doing is rewriting the
benefits to include a presumed reduction in traffic. The city doesn’t claim
congestion reduction as a future benefit – just a reduction in congestion’s
rate of growth. What the city does say is that rail will be a congestion-free,
non-highway option to commute that doesn’t now exist.

• “We need to address the
traffic congestion problem, not the public transportation problem. We need to
use tools to address congestion. Rail is not one of them.”

Pushback Missed: So if it’s
traffic congestion Mr. Slater wants to reduce, why hasn’t he gathered up a
coalition of like-minded traffic haters and proposed a congestion-reducing
transportation option to the Oahu Metropolitan Planning Organization, the City Council,
the State Legislature? He’s obviously trying to kill rail because it won’t
accomplish hisgoals and won’t be satisfied unless congestion
actually is reduced. But that’s not possible with a growing population, so Mr.
Temple's missed pushback is so obvious that it’s hard to imagine how he could have.

Other Possibilities

Mr. Temple didn’t push back
in any way, based on the reporting of this interview, which had this somewhat
bizarre final sentence in Mr. Temple's article: “The question in the end will be whether we’ll thank
him for standing firm”– which seems
to presume a failed rail project -- “or blame him for preventing a giant new addition that could
transform the look and feel of a significant part of Honolulu"– again, a presumption that rail won’t be built.

What about blaming him for
preventing rail’s construction two decades ago? What about blaming him for the
delaying tactics, including a federal lawsuit to kill rail, that have added
to this current project’s costs?What about asking him to explain his thesis that traffic
congestion can be reduced if only we were to divert the money going into rail
and put it somewhere else?

This Blog’s Pushback

Yes2Rail took immediate
notice of this interview and began posting about it the very first day it appeared at Civil Beat. Our July 12
post was headlined Cliff Slater’s ‘Ace Card’ Turns Out To Be a Joker; the flaw in his major talking point seemed so obvious
that we could barely take him seriously:

“Without the rail
alternative in (Chicago, Paris, New York and San Francisco) and other cities
around the world, congestion would be even worse than it is today, and there
would be no commuting alternative to sitting in traffic congestion.”

In talking to groups
about rail, I tell them that there’s really two things you need to know about
it. Number one, it’s gonna cost five and one-half billion dollars before cost
overruns, and the second thing is that traffic congestion with rail in the
future will be worse than it is today. And then I ask them if they have any
questions, and that kinda sums up the whole argument.”

Really? The whole argument?
It seemed preposterous then and still does that such a shallow pitch could
actually succeed, yet we’ve seen it happen before audiences pre-disposed to
oppose the rail project, like many members in a Rotary Club of Honolulu audience last
year. We wrote:

“Mr. Slater apparently
believes diverting all $5.5 billion intended for Honolulu rail will decrease
congestion. That’s the only possible
inference from his position. Yet in holding fast to that assertion, Mr.
Slater stands apart from virtually all professional assessmenets of Oahu’s
transportation future conducted by an army of transit and traffic experts.

“Yet that is what Mr.
Slater apparently believes – that despite more than a 20-percent increase in
Oahu’s population, his plan can reduce highway congestion and hours of delay by
2030. Objective assessments suggest he’s flat wrong, and we will continue to
publicize his 'whole argument' to expose its obvious weakness.”

“No kidding, in the
future, traffic congestion will be greater than it is today. I don’t think
that’s any earth-shattering news. I think what the difference is, is that
without the rail in the future, traffic congestion will be much worse than with
the rail, and I think that’s the whole point of the discussion would be. It’s
not appropriate to compare what the future is with rai and what it is now, but
it is to compare what the future would be with or without rail. That’s the
comparison that should be asked, and that’s not what Cliff Slater was just
talking about.”

Yes2Rail kept pushing even
as Honolulu’s media were backing away from examining the Obfuscator in Chief’s
dubious tactics:

Cliff Slater has been mentioned here at
Yes2Rail (a total of 801 posts counting today's) more than anyone else for good reason: He’s more
responsible than anyone else for public transportation’s rough going since at
least 1990 and possibly earlier. It happened to the Fasi Administration’s
project 20 years ago, and it’s happening again today.

As we’ve shown over the
years, Mr. Slater relies on misinformation and twisted logic in his campaign
against rail, and he relies on something else, too – government’s inability and
or unwillingness to mount a serious response to his efforts.

We’ll be watching closely
beyond next Monday, our last day as a consultant on rail, to
see if anyone steps up to challenge Mr. Slater’s rhetoric and those he has
propelled to prominence in the anti-rail fight. Mr. Slater’s own words have
supplied the ammunition.

Civil Beat’s Latest Poll

We’ll know Saturday whether
the news media’s opinion surveys were accurate or wildly off the mark. UH
professor Neal Milner last week agreed with our criticism of surveys that ignore the
opinions of citizens who are not likely voters – both the Civil Beat and the Star-Advertiser/Hawaii News Now poll did that – but are more likely than voters to rely on public transit.

Nevertheless, Dr. Milner said
the voter-only surveys do help predict the results of candidate races. But we have to wonder about Civil
Beat’slatest poll that concludes the anti-rail mayoral candidate could avoid a runoff in Saturday's vote. Here’s the
significant paragraph about the poll's methodology:

“Civil
Beat's survey sample has 80 percent age 50 or older (emphasis added). Cayetano does worst among
younger voters, with 46 percent of those in their 30s and 33 percent of those
between 18 and 29 years old. If more young voters turn out than have
historically, it would spell trouble for him. The recent Hawaii Poll sponsored by Hawaii News Now and
the Honolulu Star-Advertiser had only 48 percent of voters aged 55 or older,
and found Cayetano's overall support at 44 percent.”

That
80-percent figure is enough to question the
methodology and therefore the results. Maybe the pollsters know snake oil, too.

Citizens still unsure of how
to vote in Saturday’s Primary Election apparently haven’t heard enough to form
an opinion and are still searching for honest answers to their questions.

If that’s you, maybe this
will help:

By the end of Honolulu’s
most important week since Statehood in 1959, the city’s future could be as
bleak and blank asthis page on
the Vote Ben 2012 campaign website.

Nothingfills the white space on a page that’s devoted to “Ben’s Solutions – Real
solutions to our traffic problems – solutions that will benefit everyone and
that we can afford.” An excerpt of the page is shown at right.

This blank page is more than
ironic; it also says something about those who promise “solutions” to Oahu’s
traffic issues. Put bluntly, there is no way to “solve” traffic, and
anyone who promises “real solutions” to traffic is promising the impossible. It also says they’re out of touch

Playing Straight with the
Facts

Promising Real Solutions to
traffic congestion has a superficial appeal to it, but consider this handful of
facts:

• Traffic congestion grows
as the population grows.

• Oahu’s population will
continue to grow by another 150,000 to 200,000 by 2030.

• There’s no legal way to
prevent migration to Hawaii or (God forbid) prevent couples from having
children.

• The number of vehicles
will grow as the population increases.

• There’s insufficient space
on Oahu to build more highways and no apparent support among the public to do
so.

• Traffic isn’t solved by
adding lanes, which studies show are filled with vehicles as soon as drivers
perceive an advantage to driving on them.

It’s surprising to see the
“solution” word being used at this late date. Twenty years ago, a group called
Honolulu Taxpayers for Traffic Solutions was formed to support Mayor Fasi’s
elevated rail plan but was ridiculed on this very same point – for suggesting
traffic can be solved.

The premise it can be solved is the foundation of anti-railer-in-chief
Cliff Slater’s entire movement, which has managed to sweep up the anti-rail mayoral
candidate and others who’ve bought his “solutions” line.

“Our mission: Offering
cost effective ways to reduce traffic congestion on Oahu.The problem with the solutions offered by elected
officials is that they are all based on motorists reducing their use of the
automobile and using public transportation instead. This is wishful thinking.
Elected officials cannot point to any city that has ‘invested’ in any form of
public transportation, heavy rail, light rail or bus/rapid transit and
increased the use of public transportation as a whole even though billions of
dollar (sic) have been spent trying. Accordingly our mission is to work to find
what can be implemented to reduce congestion that has worked elsewhere.”

What an amazing page this is
in revealing both Mr. Slater's anti-government philosophy (public transit is bad, cars are
good) and in inventing the suggestion that public transit is a failure for not
increasing its share of daily transportation trips.

It’s a bogus notion,
since the major thrust of infrastructure development in the latter half of the
20th Century was to support expanded use of the private
automobile.Hundreds of billions (trillions?) were spent
toward that end, and what it gave America was infamous urban sprawl.

Not to be missed is Mr.
Slater’s inclusion of “bus/rapid transit” among his list of failed public
transportation initiatives. But that was before an anti-rail mayoral candidate
began promoting BRT as a “solution” to traffic congestion, so it’s convenient
for him to support BRT now even though he’s on record as calling BRT a failure.

Understandable Blankness

It’s not surprising after
all that the candidate’s “Real Solutions” page has nothing on it, because a lot
of nothing backs up Mr. Slater’s credentials to be Mr. Cayetano’s brain trust
on transportation.

“There is no question
that Cliff Slater is a successful businessman, and although not formally
educated, an extremely intelligent person. However, there is also ample
evidence that he has no special expertise in traffic or transportation other
that that which he has bestowed upon himself and that he has seriously
misrepresented himself.”

Honesty and truthfulness are
the overlooked key issues in the rail debate. You can find them in abundance at
the rail project's website. The contrast with the “Real Solutions” page
couldn’t be greater.

And so ends another week of
double-talk and calculated misinformation about Honolulu rail.

Yes2Rail yesterday dispatched Dennis Callan’s Civil Beat anti-rail commentary to the trash bin with a transportation
professional’s refutation of each and every one of his essay’s points.

Call us crazy, but we think
a transit expert easily trumps every card played by a travel expert in the
anti-rail misinformation game. But Mr. Callan's error-filled piece wasn’t the craziest
item among rail opponents’ activities this week.

Their Pool of Deception
deepened when a group calling itself the Hawaii Environmental Coalition
announced it would fight rail, a project that will do more to preserve the
environment than any amount of agricultural preservation.

Civil Beat, the online subscription news service, continues to
demonstrate its value to the community in covering public affairs issues. It looked earlier this week at the new group’s membership, which includes the usual cast of
rail-opposing characters – among them Cliff Slater, Randy Roth, Sam Slom, Scott
Foster, Tom Coffman, John Brizdle and the cofounders of Stop Rail Now – Dennis
Callan and Michael Uechi, who failed to stop rail in the 2008 elections.

Civil Beat observed: “The group could have been called ‘Rail
Opponents Coalition’ or ‘Cayetano Supporters Coalition.’ But those don’t have
the same ring as ‘Hawaii Environmental Coalition’ when it comes to an endorsement.”

We liked the pro-rail
comments below Civil Beat’s
article on the group so much that we’re quoting some of them today:

Long-time rail supporter Keith
Rollman: It is deeply suspicious
that this "environmental" group professes to be fighting sprawl by
trying to kill the very project that is designed to focus future growth back
into the urban corridor. The Sierra Club, nationally, supports fixed rail for
this very reason. In order to curtail suburban sprawl over open space and ag
land you need an incentive to re-develop existing high density urban areas.
Rail does that, but trying to build more highways so you can add more cars in
order to further expand low density suburban development is exactly what is
causing the problem. The anti-rail group supports sprawl, oil, cars and
highways, and cynically trying to pass themselves off as anti-sprawl
environmentalists is insulting to anyone with a functioning brain.

Roy Kamisato, who frequently adds comments below Yes2Rail’s
posts: This group could have also been named "Citizens for Urban
Sprawl". "Citizens for more Freeways", "Citizens for more
Traffic Congestion”, "Citizens promoting traffic alternatives which make
Traffic Congestion worse'' or Citizens coalition for short term thinkers"….
There is of course no way to prevent urban sprawl without sticking to the
City's General plan of placing high density developments in the West corridor.
Building rail is a requirement for that to happen. There is no way to prevent
urban sprawl without providing an efficient means of transportation in that
corridor. Building rail does not prevent politicians from allowing further
urban sprawl, but not building rail guarantees urban sprawl. (Bus Rapid
Transit) is a requirement of urban sprawl. BRT's flexibility allows for
development all over the place. This is the frustrating up-is-down argument
that is coming from the anti-rail camp. The beauty of rail is that it is a
(fixed) route and will be a magnet for development around it.

Matt Lee: For all the accusations about pro-rail groups
using tricks, I don't see these anti-rail folks any better, if not worse. Why?
Because if you can go to great lengths to accuse another party of mud slinging,
then you engage (in) it yourself, actions speak louder than words. Basically,
these folks are okay with mud slinging so long as they be the ones slinging the
mud, not receiving it. (It’d) be great if the (pro-rail) side anted up and
created some hocus pocus "environmentally this and that" group.

Seeing a Difference

What strikes us as a
consistent difference between the pro-rail and anti-rail camps is that the
former uses facts, documentation and professionalism to support its predictions
that rail will have long-lasting and profound positive effects on Oahu. The
latter use deception, misinformation and speculation to fight rail.

We highlighted this factor
in our June 28th post, which we said at the time “may be the most
important of the 772 posted here in the past four years because it cuts to the
heart of the anti-rail campaign’s prominent rhetoric and exposes it for its
manipulative qualities.”

We’ve added another 27 posts
since then, and post #799 today uses an example from today’s Honolulu
Star-Advertiser of the opponents’
reliance of scare tactics.

The story(subscription required to read online) is headlined Rail
cost outlook creeps up and includes
comments by city officials who say “they intend to ensure the Honolulu rail
project is completed on budget.” The
newspaper then cites its recent opinion survey on rail to suggest the public
doesn’t agree:

“…84 percent of Oahu
voters strongly or somewhat agree that the rail project ‘will end up costing a
lot more than is currently estimated.’” Disregard the inadequacy of that description; to be accurate, it
should have read “84 percent of very likely Oahu voters who were polled” think
the project will overrun its budget.

But beyond that point, why
do so many believe this? It’s because people like anti-railer-in-Chief Cliff
Slater have been saying so for years without many challenges based on his hunches and speculation.

Says the paper: “Longtime
rail opponent Cliff Slater said heexpects the real cost overruns will come later, after the
city has erected several miles of track. Slater said he believes rail contracts were awarded for artificially low amounts because
contractors plan to submit change orders later to demand more money.”

We added the emphasis to
highlight that these are simply Mr. Slater’s expectations and beliefs – his
hunches that are driven by his decades-long opposition to public transit
projects based on his preference for ABC transportation – Always by Car.

If the media had viewed Mr.
Slater with more skepticism and less respect over the years, delving into his
beliefs and talking points to uncover the misrepresentations at the heart of
his philosophy, maybe the public would believe something entirely different about
rail.

But Rolodex journalism – the
media’s reliance on the same sources time and again – has catapulted Mr. Slater
into near-daily prominence in local rail coverage and, because of that
coverage, bestowed an aura of authority on his pronouncements.

That aura is undeserved. If
you doubt that, please do spend some time with the posts beneath the Mr.
Cliff Slater (and Friends) heading
at our “aggregation site.”

And please also read Yes2Rail’s
June 28th post, then fast forward to yesterday’s smack-down of Dennis Callan’s anti-rail screed by a certified transit expert. There’s enough there
and elsewhere among rail-supporting groups to convince most people that the
rail opponents are pushing an agenda that has nothing to do with rail’s four
principal goals while disregarding what achieving the goals will mean for future generations of
Oahu residents.

Here are those goals again,
as originally described here in early 2011; they’re easily found in Chapter One
of the project’s FEIS:

•
Improve corridor mobility –
Congestion has increased steadily through the decades and will continue to
worsen in the decades ahead. The FEIS states: “Given current and increasing
levels of congestion, an alternative method of travel is needed within the
study corridor independent of current and projected highway congestion.” In
other words, Honolulu rail will provide congestion-free travel through the
urban corridor and thereby restore true mobility – the ability to know both
your departure and arrival times for trips across town.

•
Improve corridor travel reliability – Car and bus travel are susceptible to delays that can occur
without warning. “This lack of predictability is inefficient and results in
lost productivity or free time,” the FEIS states. “A need exists to provide
more reliable transit services.” Honolulu rail will operate on a time table;
train travel from one end of the line to the other will take 42 minutes day in
and day out.

•
Improve access to planned development to support City policy to develop a
second urban center – Again
from the FEIS: “Accessibility to the overall `Ewa Development Plan area is
currently severely impaired by the congested roadway network, which will only
get worse in the future.” Without improved accessibility to support Ewa’s
growth, the area is less likely to develop as outlined in the City’s General
Plan for decades.

•
Improve transportation equity
– Proponents of elevated highways make no allowance for this goal in their
schemes to build high-occupancy toll (HOT) roads as an option to rail. They
ignore transportation equity, which the FEIS defines as “the fair distribution
of resources so that no group carries an unfair burden of the negative
environmental, social, or economic impacts or receives an unfair share of
benefits.” HOT lanes would serve only those who can afford to pay the toll, an
option that obviously ignores the equity issue. Honolulu rail will provide
fast, frequent, reliable and safe travel to all groups of citizens, regardless
of their income and age.

That January 3 post
concluded: “Anti-railers surely will raise objections to Honolulu rail even
at this late date – as if the project can be reset and begin anew. There’s
absolutely no reason to do that, since each and every objection they raise
already has been thoroughly addressed. You can look it up, and a good place to start is the FEIS.”

In retrospect, that reads
pretty funny, since the opponents haven’t just tried to “reset and begin anew,”
they’re trying with all their might to kill this project.

And so the question today
is, which side in the rail dispute will the public believe – the fact-based
supporters or the fear-based opponents?

Friday, August 3, 2012

Stop Rail Now co-founder
Dennis Callan, a self-described world traveler who thinks the dozens of stamps
in his passport make him an expert on rail transit, has yet another misleading,
error-filled essay in Civil Beat
today.

Yes2Rail doesn’t know
whether the Honolulu rail project will attempt to correct Mr. Callan’s mistakes
and blatant disregard of the facts, but we’re not waiting. We’ve secured a
point-by-point deconstruction of Mr. Callan’s piece written by a professional
transportation planner who’s had years of experience with Honolulu rail.

Don’t worry about who the
author is as you read his refutation of Mr. Callan’s commentary, which is
headlined There are Many Reasons To Reject Rail. Just reading his fact-based analysis should
convince you he knows his stuff. Mr. Callan’s paragraphs are shown below in
purple, followed by our expert’s commentary.

There has been a truck-load of ink spilled on this topic but never, ever, have ALL the arguments been assembled in one place. One Place. There has not bee a place or time when all the arguments have been collected in one composition. This critical issue has so many dimensions to consider that we need a summary at this tie to properly state the case. The tragedy is that opponents say "too noisy, ugly, expensive" or "too..." but singling out one aspect, like financing or corruption, is not enough. It narrows and cheapens the argument.TRAFFIC & ALTERNATIVES:
Rail will not solve our traffic problems. City and FTA admit that congestion
will be worse with rail than now. Cheaper, more effective alternatives could be
implemented quickly, benefitting all, but were never properly studied by city.

Contrary to
this comment, the other options were studied and did not result in measurable
improvement compared to rail benefits. Congestion will be worse, that is true,
but much better than if we don’t build rail.No other “solutions” Callan points to can claim that.He simply chooses to ignore the results
because they don’t agree with his views.

More express buses are needed now: one
express lane could provide four times the passenger capacity than rail, at
higher speed, with seated passengers. Future cars will be computer-guided,
self-driving, making better use of lanes, safely fitting more vehicles into
existing roads. Other solutions include telecommuting, ridesharing, added
lanes, modified work & school hours.

Callan is not viewing the reality of the conditions in Honolulu. In the extreme, buses can carry a lot of people. That is true. But they do so only when they can travel unfettered by other traffic. In Honolulu, that condition does not exist even if you build a new facility. Eventually, they MUST return to the surface streets and the congestion they carry. That negates whatever benefit might have been achieved from other improvements. Callan simplistically claims capacity for buses as ridership. Providing capacity is not the same as attracting ridership. The rail project forecasts ridership, not capacity. That's all evaluated in the rail project and clearly explained. Elevated rail has none of those problems.

ENVIRONMENT & LAND USE: 20-mile,
elevated, massive concrete slab would be an eyesore. The train would have lower
energy-efficiency than future cars and current buses. Archaeological and
historic sites will be disturbed and existing neighborhoods disrupted.

The elevated rail system will
have some visual effect on parts of the city. Those locations are identified in
the EIS and addressed in detail.Most of the project will not have any notable effect on the Island.The train, contrary to Callan’s
repeated comments, is more efficient that cars and buses, current or
otherwise.Though I guess we should
reflect on the fact that he now proposes we wait for future cars to solve the
problem.He loves to claim
benefits for telecommuting and carpooling that are, in reality, miniscule.While they might still be a good idea,
they have not worked anywhere else at reducing congestion.Why would they work here?The historic sites that are along the project are being addressed in
accordance with the requirements of the National Historic Preservation
Act.A lot of effort has gone into
ensuring that no critical site is affected and not properly mitigated from that
effect.The project does not
knowingly disturb neighborhoods or sensitive sites.Callan is just making that up.

Transit Oriented Development is unlikely,
e.g. Portland, still waiting for development 25 years later. Resulting
low-density Leeward sprawl encouraged by rail will further increase congestion
and destroy farmlands. Feds have stated “Waipahu, Pearl City, and Salt Lake
communities may not be very adaptable to redevelopment.” A better planning
option is to increase city-center population.

“TOD is
unlikely.”This statement just
makes Callan look foolish. First of all, we already have TOD in parts of the
city.Callan is ignorant of the
experience in other cities yet passes himself off as somebody who has expertise
in such matters. Portland has entire neighborhoods built around the
concept.And, while TOD does not
happen just because you want it to, it is a reality in many cities around the
country and the world and an effective tool to address transportation issues.

RAIL COSTS: This is the most expensive
per-capita rail project in US history. Construction was $2.7 billion in 2006,
now $5.3 billion and climbing. Historically rail has had average overrun +40
percent from initial estimates. Operation and maintenance during the next 20
years will total over $6 billion. Combined this will cost each family of four
$48,000, which we don’t have.

So, the argument here is that
“because it costs money, we should not do something…”This is a costly project.With few exceptions, every project in Honolulu is likely to
be more expensive than a similar project elsewhere in the country.But there is no way around that if
anything effective is to be done about the issue.Callan would rather condemn the citizens of a great city to
the vagaries of his personal ideology because there is a financial cost.

This is a red herring.The source of funds for other projects
cannot by law come from the funding for the rail project. It has to be raised
independently or it won’t happen.In other words, just because the rail does not go forward does not mean
something else will. This is a good example of how Callan sees the people of
Oahu.He thinks they are simple
and that he can sell them on a lie to further his personal agenda.

RIDERSHIP: Transit use would only increase
from current 6 percent to 8 percent, benefitting just 2 percent while using
half our transportation budget. Inflated claims of 116,000 daily require a 100
percent increase in transit riders, which has never happened anywhere.

Again, this is a gross display
of ignorance on Callan’s part.By
now, he should certainly know better given the chances he’s had to inform
himself about the rail project.But then, why let the facts get in the way of an opinion?The ridership forecast is actually
conservative.It could go to well
over 130,000.The project
purposely, with the FTA’s oversight, kept the forecast conservative.Rail will represent only about a third
of the transit system ridership (including TheBus).Right now, TheBus carries about 270,000 riders a day.In 2030, the number can be expected to
be substantially higher.The rail
forecast of 116,000 would be about 40% of today’s ridership and a lesser
proportion of future ridership.How does Callan arrive at a 100% increase in ridership?Then he says “it has never happened
before” clearly without having a clue about the truth of his statement.His math is either in need of serious
remedial work or he is, once again, trying to foist a lie upon the citizens of
the City to further his own views and prevent them from exercising their right
to make an informed opinion.

Existing residential pattern is low density,
not suited for rail. Very few (perhaps 2 percent) will walk to rail;
time-consuming bus-to-rail transfers always discourage ridership; parking
available at only 3 of 21 stations; city claims 60 percent will transfer by
bus, which is a four times higher than national average. The first rail segment
starts in farmland with full route not open for 20 or 30 years. Riders would be
uncomfortable with 80% standing, some for 41 minutes. Average train speed is
only 27 mph, stopping every mile.

The density in the rail
corridor is among the highest in the country.It is not a “low density pattern” and is all within a very
narrow linear space which is exactly why rail lends itself very nicely to this
location.The farmland Callan
refers to is planned for high density residential.The rail project does not judge the good or bad of that
decision by the City and County, but it provides a vehicle for moving those
people around that Callan certainly does not have a solution for.Callan makes up all these weird
statistics to support his position and never provides any documentation of his
sources.His interpretation of
national data is often bizarre and either misinformed or malicious to further
his objectives.It is difficult to
believe any of his statistics because they are mostly made up.New parking facilities will be
available at five locations, not three.Existing parking is available at a number of station locations already
and at most, there is no need for parking because they are at the destination
end of most trips.OK, I agree it
will take 41 minutes from Kapolei to Ala Moana by rail.Do that in a car at rush hour!

JOBS: $500 million foreign payments to build
the trains will export employment. Rail technology requires importing
specialized workers. Bus transit alternatives would create local jobs. Traffic
relief, not job-creation, should be main justification.

I will give Callan credit for being persistent. This thing about rail creating foreign jobs is another red herring. Buying buses will also create foreign jobs. So what?! The issue is not foreign jobs, but whether the project create jobs here. And, as we've seen, it is already doing that. Comparing jobs for a bus alternative to jobs for the rail project is like saying that we have a choice between marlin fishing and buying a can of tuna. Buses will offer little or no relief. Let's get past this. It's clearly discussed in the EIS. Callan just wants to perpetuate misinformation ahead of the vote for Mayor to gain his selfish ends. If we want traffic relief, let's built the rail project. Nothing else can do as well.

OPERATION: Train has no drivers, no police,
and security is not in budget. Honor system for fare collection is unreliable.
Trains are old-fashioned, obsolete technology, with rigid alignment that cannot
be modified for changing conditions.

This is a flat out lie.All these features are part of the
plan.They have always been a
priority item.Callan just does
not want anybody to know that.Also, for all the travel Callan does, you’d think he would know how
trains have changed over the past two decades.These ain’t your father’s choo-choos.

POLITICS: The public has been subject to
years of misleading ads by government, paid with tax money. Our city
administration is irresponsible to proceed now, issuing $300 million in
contracts in the face of lawsuits and the upcoming election, without guarantee
of Federal funds. If rail is not approved, new construction will have to be
torn down (“cheaper” city claims).

Arrogant politicians have been intolerant of
criticism, and unwilling to listen to alternate opinions. Biased studies were
conducted by the same city-contracted planner, Parsons, who recommended Bus
Rapid Transit in 2003 and dismissed rail. Major polls show public now opposed
to rail. The 2008 election was rigged by big $$ on misleading ads, and promises
of reduced congestion and lower price. Rail benefits special interests:
bankers, developers, politicians, unions and planners with ties to rail. We
need real solutions.

The misleading information is
coming from the anti-rail crowd.They compound it with feigned paranoia to further excite their
audiences.They have nothing to
offer that improves upon the rail project.Their ideas were, despite their continual whining about
dismissing “alternate opinions”, studied in detail during the Alternatives
Analysis and discussed in the EIS.They expected a particular outcome and did not get it, so they make up
stories to mislead people about what will work.It’s a childish position to take and, hopefully, people will
not fall for it.Callan has
nothing to offer but a perpetuation of current conditions that will get
substantially worse over time.Rail gives people a choice they do not have today.Callan does not want to citizens of
Honolulu to have that choice.

About the author: Dennis Callan co-founded Stop Rail Now in 2008. He
has learned about mass transit during the past 30 years leading tours to Europe
and elsewhere, riding metro rail in 62 different cities, nearly all of which
are larger and more densely populated than Honolulu. He has been opposing the
Honolulu rail for 35 years and is currently active in the Cayetano mayoral
campaign.

Sorry. Traveling around the world as a tourist is not a substitute for studying and understanding the principles that shape transportation. It's OK to disagree with a project or a position, but it's not OK to tell stories that take away from the people's right to make an informed decision.

There you have it – a thorough and credible dismantling of the anti-rail set’s best list of reasons to oppose Honolulu’s
elevated rail project. If they didn't think so highly of this commentary, they wouldn't have placed it 8 days before the Primary Election.

Please digest our friend's response and take it to the bank. As they say in Vegas, "It's money."

This post has been included in Yes2Rail's "aggregation site" under the Mr. Cliff Slater (and Friends)heading.

This Isn't Political

Yes2Rail is a blog about the Honolulu rail transit project, which has become the key issue in this year’s mayoral race. We comment on the candidates’ plans to address Oahu’s growing congestion problem and whether those plans could meet the need as well as elevated rail can and will. That’s not the same as criticizing the candidates, and we urge our readers to recognize the difference.

Another red-light runner meets Denver at-grade train, 6.13.12

Honolulu rail will be elevated, with zero possibility for accidents like those shown in this column in cities with at-grade systems. Visit our "aggregation site" for much more on why elevated rail is the only reasonable way to build Honolulu rail.

What riding the train will avoid

Bus Accident Aftermath on H-1

'Black Tuesday'--9/5/06 Crash Produced Nightmare Commute

Typical H-1 Traffic

About Me

After five years of active-duty service as an Army officer with duty stations in West Berlin and South Vietnam, reported and edited for newspapers and broadcast stations (including all-news radio) in Philadelphia, Chicago, Los Angeles and Honolulu. Covered Honolulu city government for the Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB-TV. Served on Congressman Cec Heftel's staff in Honolulu and Washington, then managed corporate communications and was Hawaiian Electric Company's spokesman for nearly a decade. A communications consultant for 19 years before moving to California in 2012 (Commaaina.com). Launched, produced and hosted Hawaii Public Radio's "live" weekly "Energy Futures" public affairs program in 2009-10. Authored books on The National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific ("Punchbowl" 1982) and on the decline of standard grammar in business and society ("Me and Him Are Killing English!" 2007). Now an information officer with the California Department of Water Resources.